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A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

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Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#71

Post by micromacrofoot »

alephnerd wrote: post #29
werber wrote: post #6

I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable

Chicago, DC, Boston, SF, Philly (depending on "international"), Portland (walkable but not really international - it's just 90s-2000s white Americans doing 90s-2000s white American stuff, you'd think Kurt Cobain still roams the earth) Though if you want affordability, that leaves Chicago and Philly. NYC sucks in that sense though, as a lot of industries that are conglomerated in NYC haven't ensured salaries keep up w…

boston suburbs aren’t walkable though, if you’re not remote you’ve got a minimum 40 min commute each way

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#72

Post by plagiarist »

werber wrote: post #6

I thought this seemed fair till i read it was in flushing. Nyc is the worst, but, if you’re American where else can you get a city that international and walkable

Oh. Yeah I would also probably pay $15k for $1k rent if I intended to stay in NYC long term. You'd have positive ROI on that before the end of year two.

But Flushing is too far from Manhattan and too close to La Guardia. I'd gladly pay more not to listen to that shit all the time, the car noise in the city is bad enough.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#73

Post by karaterobot »

Fripplebubby wrote: post #30
paxys wrote: post #18

The reason I live in a large managed building in NYC is that while such corporate housing may be bad, the broker cartel is infinitely worse. Every independent unit wanted at minimum $7-10K in broker fees, despite the fact that in most cases I didn’t even interact with the broker in any way. So what value are they adding to the system exactly?

The article explains that they are pre-vetting renters and handling showings and such. They add value for the landlord, not for you. But, they are also probably extracting the maximum amount of blood from you, because they can...

The last time I hunted for apartments, the landlords did all that themselves for no money, so I guess things have changed.

I guess I can see charging some money, but pre-vetting renters is probably just a matter of submitting their application to some service, and maybe doing a Google search, right? How much would you pay someone for that? About $7500?

And I imagine that in an $1100 rent-controlled building, you don't have to do too many showings before someone bites, so how much of a burden is that? A few hours? Would you pay me $7500 for that?

I guess I could see $1000 being a generous amount of money for brokers fees in this situation, if everything was being fairly run. So, in my view, the difference between the asked-for $15000 and the generous $1000 is the amount of inefficiency in this process introduced by what amounts to greed. Greed is to be expected, but when it starts to look predatory, regulators sometimes step in—which means it may be short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive greed.

To be fair, probably nothing will come of it, and the market will just dictate these costs. But, it's still a shitty thing to do.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#74

Post by alephnerd »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #71
alephnerd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago, DC, Boston, SF, Philly (depending on "international"), Portland (walkable but not really international - it's just 90s-2000s white Americans doing 90s-2000s white American stuff, you'd think Kurt Cobain still roams the earth) Though if you want affordability, that leaves Chicago and Philly. NYC sucks in that sense though, as a lot of industries that are conglomerated in NYC haven't ensured salaries keep up w…

boston suburbs aren’t walkable though, if you’re not remote you’ve got a minimum 40 min commute each way

True, but a burb like Tewksbury is a bit more affordable than a similar burb in NYC like White Plains or Piscataway when factoring salaries and taxes.

Same way most people in the NY Metro live in less walkable boroughs or suburbs.

And it's the same story in any other "international" city - be it London, Tokyo, Paris, etc

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#75

Post by imtringued »

htag wrote: post #44
anovikov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's right! 10 years is an understatement. It means simply that the city is "locked out" for everyone but locals who inherited rental contract from their grandfathers, or multimillionaire cash buyers.

Maybe this is the hack for managing city growth

Why do you want successful cities to stop growing? Especially ones that have zero desire to stop attracting employers. Offices take up very little space so if you let developers build commercial real estate you will always have a mismatch between housing and jobs if you stop building residential real estate. This will displace lower income people in the end and lead to gentrification rather than a stop to growth.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#76

Post by ayewo »

misiti3780 wrote: post #63
ethanbond wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't answer how you got the apartment, which is invariably either luck, knowing someone, or having rich parents (in which case you can buy one of those income-controlled units that make zero sense for anyone except a nepo-baby -- e.g. need to earn I also had a time in a rent-stabilized apartment in NYC (East Village, probably not far from yours) and the answer of how I got it: luck. It happened to be availabl…

read the last paragraph ...

I also thought you didn’t answer the question but after re-reading it sounds like you first started living in the apartment by subleasing from another tenant.

Then once another apartment became vacant, because you already lived there you were able to regularize your presence by terminating your sublease so you could lease directly?

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#77

Post by zemvpferreira »

ethanbond wrote: post #59
vr46 wrote: post #13

The UK has completely abolished fees (I think) for tenants - I am a reluctant landlord - and I completely agree with that, the power asymmetry in finding housing is already bad enough without allowing blank-cheque negotiations. In my section of Germany, housing is even worse with rent caps and tenant rights, plus a lack of housing. Tenants are hard to move on, so landlords are painfully cautious about getting the rig…

Land Value Tax: Make it financially unfeasible to speculate, to withhold units from the market, and to withhold unused land from the market. Let prices freely fluctuate with the market. Increases in rent derived from externalities (i.e. Amazon HQ2 setting up shop nearby or a new subway station) go back into public coffers, while increases in rent derived from landlord actions (i.e. renovations, building bigger, bette…

I'm a fan as long as we also continue building. Build, build, build as long as demand is there.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#78

Post by lttlrck »

anovikov wrote: post #38
hedora wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden is often used as a case study in how rent controls lead to housing shortages. Rent control tries to make housing more affordable by reducing the cost, which immediately reduces the supply. At that point, rent control ends up increasing housing costs. Theory and real-world case studies mean that this is so obvious, that I just assume anyone that's passed economics 101 and is advocating for rent control is eithe…

Well, you can't have a working democracy, market economy, and affordable housing at same time. Something has to give.

I'm fascinated by this statement. Where does it come from?

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#79

Post by _fat_santa »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #68

A broker’s fee for an apartment? I’ve never seen that. I own a house now, but when I used to rent, the process was to visit the websites of local well known management companies, pick a few apartments you like, and have the manager show each to you. Then you pick one and apply. Why are people injecting the expense of a broker into such a simple transaction? And the renters are the ones paying?

I think broker fees are only a thing in NYC. So far I've rented in Atlanta and Denver and in both cases you can just contact the property, arrange a rental and sign the paperwork and boom you got the keys.

Re: A rent-stabilized 1 bedroom apartment for $1,100 In NYC? broker's fee is $15K

#80

Post by _cenw »

vr46 wrote: post #13

The UK has completely abolished fees (I think) for tenants - I am a reluctant landlord - and I completely agree with that, the power asymmetry in finding housing is already bad enough without allowing blank-cheque negotiations. In my section of Germany, housing is even worse with rent caps and tenant rights, plus a lack of housing. Tenants are hard to move on, so landlords are painfully cautious about getting the rig…

Social housing in Germany is asinine. The government heavily co-finances new construction for a subset of flats being offered as affordable housing, but with a 30 year limit to these restrictions. It's a subsidy for the rich. You break even, and you get some very cheap real estate in 30 years. The government should've just done the construction itself.

A lot of social housing is currently reaching that 30 year mark, and it's barely being replaced. And costs for new constructions simply don't make a lot of sense right now, also affected by increasing building standards - which also prevent conversion of much vacant commercial space.

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